Happy Friday, Gentle Readers,
I pray this missive finds you well. It would seem that summer is not quite done with its stranglehold on the Intermountain West, as we are looking at temps ranging into the 80s and 90s this weekend. Some would call it a last, glorious blast of summer. I call it another weekend in which I have to go out and mow the yard.
True, in a few short months, I will be griping about shoveling walks and cleaning windshields, but at least with the walks, you can say the weather is too bad to go outside. That same excuse rarely applies to yard work.
Make government obsolete again
One of the most infuriating things to come out of the Hurricane Helene disaster is the botched job governments are doing in response.
Not to mention some very shady accusations about FEMA's behavior.
BREAKING: FEMA whistleblowers have come forward alleging that the agency misappropriated funds in the wake of Helene, withheld pre-disaster aid, and that first responders and service members have been waiting in hotels without deployment orders. pic.twitter.com/uf0XrspRTz
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 4, 2024
Having worked a bit in the field of emergency response planning, I can tell you that the job of FEMA, the CDC, or any other of your least-favorite alphabet organizations used to be to show up and say to local and state governments, "Here are the supplies and the support personnel we brought. Where do you want the stuff, and what do you want our people to do?"
State and local governments should have contingency plans in place for emergencies. Granted, the scope of the incident was far greater than anyone could have anticipated, but a smart emergency planner would have thought through things like storms, flash floods, etc. A smart emergency planner would have a list of shelters, areas for triage, and distribution centers.
There would be a list not just of standard emergency personnel but Ham radio operators, hunting guides, private airplane and helicopter pilots, truck drivers, and anyone who could volunteer and pitch in. There should be maps of where communities, large and small, are located. And there should be MOUs in place that could be activated to save time and frantic phone calls.
Again, Helene was bigger than anyone expected, but the federal and state governments allocated funding for people to sit at desks and anticipate all these things. And what did we get? People strutting around like Matt Dillon in an "official capacity."
We got Pete Buttigieg under the auspices of safety prohibiting drones from locating victims. Drones are forbidden around wildfires for good reason because of air operations like water and retardant drops and helicopters moving people and materials. But what about in a situation like this, where it is crucial to find survivors and injured people or to find alternative routes for rescue operations? FEMA isn't doing much, anyway.
BREAKING: Pete Buttigieg announces private drones are RESTRICTED from flying over hurricane areas. This prevents civilian volunteers from locating victims in need or showing footage of the disaster pic.twitter.com/BLjfuOuhYl
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 3, 2024
We also got Alejandro Mayorkas admitting that he didn't have the money on hand to help since he spent his allowance on his illegal immigrant collection.
So in the midst of all of this, whatever it is, who is stepping up to help their neighbors and even strangers? The people who always do.
And cue the theme from "Rawhide."
Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is a company based in North Carolina that provides pack mules for military missions. The company has been using its mules to get donated food, lights, tarps, batteries and other supplies to stranded residents in Black Mountain and Swannanoa, NC. This is… pic.twitter.com/A367gP3rlI
— Dr. Clayton Forrester (@DrClaytonForre1) October 2, 2024
Pack mules to the rescue in NC.
— MTKate2.0 (@777katemt) October 2, 2024
We The People 🙏 pic.twitter.com/6Qm9YeHdqF
Mountain Mule Packers of North Carolina is bringing supplies and rescuing people the old fashioned way.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) October 3, 2024
Appalachia Strong for America.pic.twitter.com/PKPHoeb2yn
Tell these government people that if they want to stand around and look cool in their badges, lanyards, cute color-coordinated vests, and BDUs, fine. Just stay out of the way. Better yet, go home. You aren't helping. You never help. Go home and file paperwork. Go home and apply for another grant. Go home and write another press release that no one will read. Go home and tell unearned war stories over Bud Light. Go home and wait for your pension to kick in. Go home and swipe Tinder. Just get out of the way.
It is not the American public's fault that the government has decided to pad its ranks with ambitious sycophants who couldn't hack it in the real world and couldn't escape a paper bag with a Zippo lighter.
In the end, not in tandem with the government, but in spite of the government, it is the common man who solves the problem. The neighbor, the farmer, the cowboy, the trucker, the volunteer, the church — it is always the common man who gets the job done. And it always will be.
Wine recommendation
Because it's time to raise a glass to the heroes and heroines of Hurricane Helene, very few of whom, if any, have GS ratings.
It has been a spell since we have had white wine, so I thought I would sample the 2023 Anna's Way Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.
This wine is a little bit sweeter than your average Sauvignon Blanc. It's not so sweet as to be distracting, but if you are in the market for a drier version, you may want to look elsewhere. Not that this is a bad wine; this was a nice bottle. But if you are used to a dry, harder-hitting Sauvignon Blanc.
I detected apricots and peaches, and it had a rather mild finish. It will work well with shrimp, lobster, oysters, or a nice cheese platter. But this is more of a summer wine, and we sampled our bottle during a brief evening cool spell when we thought Fall was going to show up. There's nothing wrong with this wine, but if you are looking for something a little more aggressive, you may want to point your corkscrew elsewhere.
That's it for me. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next time.
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